


4/26

by viscrael



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Diary/Journal, Gen, Homelessness, POV First Person, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5200733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>March 14</em>
</p>
<p>A girl called me “he” today completely on accident. She laughed a little, because silly her, I’m a girl. To be fair, I laughed too.</p>
<p>I’m not laughing anymore, though.</p>
<p>Is it weird that I didn’t mind when she called me that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	4/26

**Author's Note:**

> **for context:**
> 
> my school is putting together a program where the dance department is representing different people, showing how they got to losing their homes. each dancer got to come up with their own story, and then send the outline of it to the literary kids to write out. i got assigned to write about a trans boy name shane, and this is what i ended up doing.
> 
> **trigger warnings for:** transphobia, child physical and emotional abuse, and religion.

_January 6_

I’m finally using this notebook Mom gave me for Christmas. Not that there’s much to write in here. Family is the same as always. I’m dreading going back to school.

 

_January 13_

Wednesday. Went to youth group after school. Everyone was talking about the whole Caitlyn Jenner scandal. One girl in my group couldn’t stop talking about how wrong it was. “The Lord doesn’t make mistakes,” she kept saying. “If He’d wanted him to be a woman, he would’ve been born that way.”

I feel a little sick. Dunno why though.

 

_January 15_

I just got out of the shower. I couldn’t stop watching the mirror when I was undressing. I’ve never had very good self esteem, but I wasn’t upset with how I look, it just…took me a moment to realize that was me in the mirror. But that’s a stupid thing to do. Who else could it have been anyway?

 

_January 20_

Parents got in another argument. I don’t know what it was actually about, but I heard “troubled child” on more than one occasion. They’re talking about me again.

I need to go to church more often, apparently. I need to stop being so moody. Aren’t teenagers supposed to be moody?

 

_February 3_

Something feels wrong all the time. I can’t recognize myself; I can’t recognize my own name sometimes. Dad’s been yelling more. Mom won’t even say anything about it. She just goes along with whatever. I think he’s been hurting her again.

He still says his “amen”s and “thank you, Lord”s, though.

 

_February 10_

Can’t stop noticing things about other people. I keep looking at boys’ hands and comparing them to my own. Why do my hands have to be so small? They get swallowed whole by other people’s. I wish I were taller. I wish I were stronger—and not just because I’d be able to protect myself then.

 

_February 26_

Dad won’t stop yelling about homework. Apparently, I’m disappointing the family with all my low grades. “You can do better,” he’s yelling. “Or are you really that stupid?”

I think that, yeah, I probably am. After all, you’d have to be to not recognize yourself in the mirror, wouldn’t you?

 

_March 8_

I guess it was sort of stupid of me to think that being transgender was a one-way thing. I just found the term “trans man.” I guess I’d just assumed that trans women were the only kind of trans allowed. Had to delete my internet history, just in case Dad goes through it again.

 

_March 14_

A girl called me “he” today completely on accident. She laughed a little, because silly her, I’m a girl. To be fair, I laughed too.

I’m not laughing anymore, though.

Is it weird that I didn’t mind when she called me that?

 

_March 16_

Stomach feels weird. Mom started talking at dinner about how disgusting gays and lesbians are. Conversation switched to Caitlyn Jenner again. Mom agreed with Dad—“God makes no mistakes.”

Funny how they aren’t saying that when I’m being a “difficult child.”

 

_March 20_

A boy in class made a comment about the bruise on my arm. The teacher yelled at him, but she made me stay after class anyway and asked if everything is okay at home. I’m getting pretty sick of lying through my teeth.

 

_March 25_

I think I might be a boy.

 

_March 27_

Mom said she would’ve named me Daniel if I had been born a boy, but I think I like the name Shane better. She asked me why I wanted to know and got really defensive, and I just barely lied my way out of it. But I still deleted my internet history, just in case.

 

_April 2_

It hurts to look at myself—not because I’m ugly, but because nothing feels _right._ There’s a lump in my throat whenever I pass a mirror; my chest is so _heavy_ all the time; there’s a stitch behind my lungs that won’t leave me alone. I looked it up—“gender dysphoria” is what people call that feeling, apparently. “The condition of feeling one's emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one's biological sex.”

I’m trying to sleep right now, but Dad won’t stop yelling.

 

_April 9_

Apparently, trans boys who haven’t had surgery wear something called a binder to flatten their chests. I kind of want one, but I’m way too scared to even think of that. My dad would find out somehow. Sometimes I’m scared of what lengths he’ll go through to hurt me.

 

_April 13_

I’m dreading going home.

 

_April 26_

I can’t stop crying. This bus is so crowded and people won’t stop staring at me and I can’t breathe anymore. Dad found out about everything and wouldn’t stop yelling. I couldn’t even deny anything, he was yelling so _loud_.

I tried to defend myself, and look where that got me. He backhanded me with all those damn rings still on, and Mom didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t even blink.

I think I’m still bleeding.

But I can’t go back now.


End file.
